Your website is often the first point of contact for your customers. It’s your digital storefront, business card, and brand’s online identity. With more and more people relying on the internet for information, a website is no longer optional; it’s a necessity. But more than having a website is required; you must ensure it’s designed to deliver the best possible user experience. If your website needs to be updated, clunky or challenging to navigate, it may be time for a website redesign.
A website redesign can do wonders for your online presence, from improving your search engine ranking to boosting your conversion rates. But redesigning your website isn’t just about giving it a fresh coat of paint. It involves a strategic approach considering your business goals, target audience, and user experience.
In this article, we’ll guide you through the website redesign process, covering everything from planning and design to development and launch. Let’s get started.
Why is a website redesign necessary?
In today’s digital age, a company’s website is often the first point of contact for potential customers. It’s essential to have a website that looks professional, functions well, and provides a positive user experience. Here are some reasons why a website redesign may be necessary:
Update the design for your target audience
If your website’s design needs to be updated or reflect your brand image, it may be time for a redesign. A modern, visually appealing website can help build trust with potential customers and keep them engaged.
As your business grows and evolves, your website should too. A website redesign can help you incorporate new products or services, update your branding, and improve your online presence better to reflect your business’s current goals and values.
Improve your user experience(UX) and mobile-responsiveness
If your website is challenging to navigate or slow to load, users may become frustrated and leave your site. A website redesign can improve the user experience, making it easier for visitors to find what they want and engage with your content.
With more and more people accessing the internet on their mobile devices, your website needs to be mobile-friendly. A responsive website redesign can ensure your site looks great and functions well on any device, including smartphones and tablets.
Optimize for search engines
If your website isn’t optimized for search engines, it may not appear in search results for relevant keywords. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps businesses increase their visibility and rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). However, more than having a website is needed to guarantee online success.
SEO strategies that can help improve your site’s ranking and drive more traffic to your site. It’s essential to keep up with the ever-changing SEO trends and algorithms to ensure your website is optimized for search engines.
Outdated Technology
Outdated technology can cause problems for a website, including security vulnerabilities, compatibility issues, limited functionality, and difficulty with maintenance and support. These issues can negatively impact search engine optimization efforts, website speed, and the overall performance of the existing website. A website redesign can address these issues by incorporating up-to-date technology, such as a modern content management system, to improve security, compatibility, functionality, and maintenance.
Where do you start with the website redesign process?
Audit Your Existing Website
The first step in any website redesign process is to assess your existing website. This involves closely examining your website’s design, content, functionality, and user experience. With these insights, you can make better decisions and fine-tune your website redesign strategy.
Here are some actionable ways, including free tools available, that you can use to audit your current website:
Use Google Search Console
This free tool provided by Google helps you understand how your website performs in search results. You can use it to find out what keywords people use to find your website, see how often your website appears in search results, and identify any errors that need fixing.
Test your website’s speed
A slow website can significantly impact your website visitor’s experience and your search engine rankings. You can use tools like GTmetrix or PageSpeed Insights by Google to measure your website’s speed and identify improvement areas.
Check your website’s mobile responsiveness
With more people using mobile devices to browse the web, ensuring your website is mobile-friendly is crucial. You can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to check if your website is optimized for mobile devices.
Your website should be easy to navigate, with clear and readable text and images that are appropriately sized for mobile devices. The layout should adapt to different screen sizes and resolutions, ensuring your website looks good and functions properly on all devices.
Analyze your website’s content
Good content is essential for attracting and retaining website visitors. You can use tools like Google Analytics to see which pages on your website are performing well and which ones need improvement. Use this data to guide your content creation efforts. Consider using Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest to see your current search engine results performance.
Set Goals for the website redesign strategy
Once you’ve assessed your existing website, it’s time to set goals for the redesign. What do you want to achieve with the new website? We recommend starting with Improving User Engagement, Increasing Inter-Page Links, and Enhancing your Call-to-Action.
Improving User Engagement – Keeping visitors interested in the content and ultimately converting them into customers is essential. One effective way to improve user engagement is by providing high-quality, relevant content that meets the user’s needs. This can include blog posts, product descriptions, and multimedia such as videos and images. It’s also vital to ensure the website is easy to navigate, with clear calls-to-action and a user-friendly design. Interactive elements such as quizzes or polls can also help engage users and keep them on the site longer. Finally, responding to user feedback and implementing changes based on their suggestions can help to build trust and loyalty with the user base.
Increasing Inter-Page Links – Increasing inter-page links on a website effectively improves its SEO performance. Including internal links throughout your site makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index your pages. Additionally, inter-page linking can keep visitors engaged with your site by providing them with relevant content and encouraging them to explore more pages. You can start by analyzing your existing content and identifying opportunities to link to related pages to increase inter-page links. Consider creating a hub page that links to all relevant pages on a particular topic. By increasing inter-page links, you can boost your website’s SEO and provide a better user experience for your visitors.
Enhancing your call-to-action (CTA) – This is essential to encourage visitors to take the desired action on your website, generating more leads. Firstly, ensure that your CTA is prominently placed on your website with a clear message encouraging visitors to act. Consider including the CTA section on every page, so the form is 1-click less. Use contrasting colours, such as orange or red, for your CTA button, which draws the visitor’s attention.
Use action-oriented language in your CTA, such as “Sign up now” or “Get started today.” Additionally, use urgency or scarcity tactics by including phrases such as “Limited time offer” or “Only a few spots left” to create a sense of urgency. Finally, optimize your CTA for mobile devices, as many website visitors access websites on mobile devices.
Choose a Content Management System:
A content management system (CMS) is software that allows you to create, manage, and publish content on your website. Many CMS options are available, but WordPress is the most popular and user-friendly.
With WordPress, users have access to a vast array of customizable templates, plugins, and themes that can help enhance the design and functionality of their site. Additionally, WordPress is SEO-friendly and has built-in tools to optimize content for search engines. With its user-friendly interface and community support, WordPress is an excellent option for beginners and experienced website owners alike.
Optimize for SEO and Responsive Design:
Finally, optimizing your website for search engines and responsive design is essential. This means ensuring your website is mobile-friendly, loads quickly, and is optimized for relevant keywords and phrases. Use Google Search Console to monitor your website’s performance and identify areas for improvement. Implement responsive design principles to ensure your website looks great and functions well on all devices.
Launch your newly redesigned website
After thoroughly testing your website redesign, it’s time to launch it. This involves migrating your new website to your web hosting provider and making it live for your audience.
While you are at this stage, we recommend hosting your new website on an optimized web hosting server. Here are 3 WordPress hosting providers with high availability and great speed:
SiteGround
SiteGround is a popular hosting provider with excellent performance and high availability for WordPress sites. Their hosting platform is optimized for WordPress and includes free SSL certificates, automatic updates, and daily backups. SiteGround also offers a range of tools and resources to help website owners manage their sites more effectively.
WP Engine
WP Engine is a premium WordPress hosting provider with excellent performance and high availability. Their hosting platform is optimized specifically for WordPress, which means they can offer faster page load times, better security, and automatic updates for WordPress core and plugins. WP Engine also offers a range of features and tools to help website owners manage their sites more effectively.
Bluehost
Bluehost is a reliable and affordable hosting provider with excellent performance and high availability for WordPress sites. Their hosting platform includes automatic WordPress installation, free SSL certificates, and a user-friendly dashboard for managing your site. Bluehost also offers 24/7 support and a range of tools to help website owners build and grow their online presence.
Ensure you have a backup of your existing website if anything goes wrong during the launch process. You should also notify your customers and visitors about upcoming changes, especially if you’re making significant changes to your website’s functionality or layout.
Monitor and measure your website performance
Launching your new website is just the beginning of your website redesign journey. You must continually monitor and measure your website’s performance to ensure it meets your goals.
Use website analytics tools to track your website’s traffic, bounce rates, conversion rates, and other key metrics. This data can help you identify areas of improvement and fine-tune your website to deliver the best possible user experience.
We recommend these three free analytics tools that you can install on your website to track its performance:
Google Analytics
This is one of the most popular website analytics tools available today. It provides comprehensive data, including website traffic, visitor behaviour, and conversion rates. With Google Analytics, you can track where your visitors are coming from, which pages they visit, and how long they stay on your site. You can also set up conversion tracking to see how many visitors are taking specific actions, such as purchasing or filling out a contact form.
Hotjar
This powerful tool allows you to analyze user behaviour on your website. It includes features such as heatmaps, which show where users are clicking on your site, and session recordings, which allow you to watch how users interact with your site in real time. With Hotjar, you can gain valuable insights into how users navigate your site, where they are encountering issues, and what areas of your site are most engaging.
PageSpeed Insights
This tool developed by Google helps you optimize your website’s loading speed. It analyzes your website’s performance on desktop and mobile devices and suggests improving load times. With PageSpeed Insights, you can identify any issues that may be slowing down your site and take steps to address them, such as compressing images or reducing the size of your website’s code.
Using these free analytics tools, you can gain valuable insights into your website’s performance and make data-driven decisions to improve its user experience and achieve your business goals.
Conclusion
A website redesign is an essential investment in your business’s online presence. It can help improve your user experience, boost traffic, and increase conversions. By following the key steps we’ve outlined in this article, you can ensure your website redesign is a success and delivers the results you’re looking for. So, revamp your online presence with a website redesign today!
Want us to manage your redesign project? Say no more fam! At Web Potato, we specialize in creating customized, user-friendly websites that help businesses achieve their goals.
One of the most significant advantages of working with Web Potato is saving business owners time and energy. Rather than spending countless hours learning new skills and troubleshooting technical issues, business owners can focus on what they do best – providing top-quality products or services to their customers.